Sometime during the Astros 7-5 loss to the Cards on Sunday, I texted my brother and said, ” These Astros are almost unwatchable. The “almost” allows me to watch Yordan Alvarez’s at-bats as he hit his 10th homer of the season, which is the most in the majors. Oh, and he leads the majors in OBP. SLG (which means he leads in OPS), Offensive WAR, Total bases, Extra Base hits, and is tied for playing the most games.
Sure, it was fun to watch Spencer Arrighetti return and pitch well. And Kai Weng Teng, Enyel De Los Santos, along with Bryan King (before Sunday’s game) have had their moments out of the bullpen.
And the hitters have been enjoyable at times, though often they are chasing a goal post that keeps moving away from them. And some of the hitters are falling back towards 2025 problems.
Here are some stats:
- The Astros are 3-13 in their last 16 games, 8-15 overall, and somehow only 3-1/2 games back in the mediocre and below AL West
- In their first 23 games, the Astros have already had 10 different starting pitchers. That is more than they used in the good old days (2018 or 2022) for an entire season.
- While having 13 pitchers on their 26-man roster at any one time, they have already used 20 pitchers total this far into the season.
- Oh, and those pitchers. Only 6 of the 20 pitchers they’ve used have ERAs under 5 so far and two of those are Hunter Brown (who is on the IL) and Arrighetti (who only has one appearance so far). Twelve of their pitchers have ERAs over six, nine have ERAs over seven…..you get the idea.
- Four of their pitchers (Brown, Tatsuya Imai, Cristian Javier and Cody Bolton) are pitchers who have started games but are currently on the IL.
- After being super hot, both Jose Altuve and Christian Walker have been floating back to the pack. Isaac Paredes (who had a huge hit to end a long slump on Sunday) and Yainer Diaz have both been below the Mendoza Line.
- Of the youngsters, Cam Smith has looked more like the good Cam of 2025, Joey Loperfido was pretty solid (until he ended up on the IL) and Brice Matthews has been an unmitigated disaster so far – hitting .107 BA and culminating in Sunday’s game where he pinch ran and got himself picked off and then made an error on an easy grounder that helped Bryan King crash and burn in the 10th inning. I will not be surprised if I wake up tomorrow and Mr. Matthews is back in my city of Sugar Land.
- The Astros best starting pitcher (Brown) is on the IL. The best relief pitcher (Josh Hader) is on the IL. Their best player from 2025, though not as good as Yordan this year (Jeremy Pena) is on the IL.
And I am still not sure what to ask the Astros to do.
Long-time friend of the blog, Zanuda, wrote the other day…
“Sometimes I think we have better ideas on how to get the most out of players, either by playing them more, less, or bringing them up or sending them down to SL. Of course, we haven’t been asked our opinions by the team management, so I guess we’ll just have to accept the current management. But let’s keep trying!”
My assignment to each of you is to pick out something that you belive needs to be addressed with the Astros and what you would do if given the opportunity and the power to address it.
ALL THINGS ASTROS 